Katrine

Katrine, by Enilor Macartney Lane

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Title: Katrine
Author: Enilor Macartney Lane
Release Date: December 6, 2004 [EBook #14263]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Illustration: "I HAVE WAITED ALL THESE YEARS"]

KATRINE
A Novel
BY
ELINOR MACARTNEY LANE
AUTHOR OF "NANCY STAIR" AND "MILLS OF GOD"

NEW YORK AND LONDON HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
MCMIX

Copyright, 1909, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
All rights reserved.
Published March, 1909.

To =Grant B. Schley=
Dear and great Friend! In =Katrine's= fancied "Land" You long have held your own much-honored place-- Have met great Esmond; held kind Newcome's hand; And talked with merry Alan face to face; For there, where Loyalty was word of countersign, You entered, all unchallenged, for the land was thine!
E.M.L.
PARIS, 1909

CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE PREFACE vii I. UNDER THE SOUTHERN PINES 1 II. THE MEETING IN THE WOODS 15 III. A KINDNESS WITH MIXED MOTIVES 29 IV. THE PROMISE IN THE ROSE GARDEN 43 V. FRANK FALLS FURTHER UNDER KATRINE'S INFLUENCE 50 VI. DERMOTT GIVES A DINNER AT THE OLD LODGE 63 VII. KATRINE'S OWN COUNTRY 76 VIII. FRANK YIELDS TO TEMPTATION 88 IX. THE TRUTH 94 X. TO TRY TO UNDERSTAND 104 XI. KATRINE IS LEFT ALONE 113 XII. THE REAL FRANCIS RAVENEL 121 XIII. DERMOTT'S INTERVIEW WITH FRANK AT THE TREVOY 127 XIV. DERMOTT DISCOVERS A NEW SIDE TO FRANK'S CHARACTER 137 XV. JOSEF 143 XVI. MRS. RAVENEL UNWITTINGLY BECOMES AN ALLY OF KATRINE 152 XVII. MCDERMOTT VISITS HIS FRENCH COUSIN 160 XVIII. KATRINE MEETS ANNE LENNOX 172 XIX. A VISION OF THE PAST 193 XX. THE INFLUENCE OF WORK 212 XXI. THE NIGHT OF KATRINE'S D��BUT 219 XXII. FRANK AND KATRINE MEET AT THE VAN RENSSELAER'S 228 XXIII. AN INTERRUPTED CONFESSION 234 XXIV. "I WILL TAKE CARE OF YOU" 249 XXV. KATRINE IN NEW YORK 271 XXVI. DERMOTT MCDERMOTT 282 XXVII. SELF-SURRENDER 299 XXVIII. UNDER THE SOUTHERN PINES ONCE MORE 303

PREFACE
It is difficult to tell the story of Irish folk intimately and convincingly, the bare truths concerning their splendid recklessness, their unproductive ardor, their loyalty and creative memories, sounding to another race like a pack of lies.
When, therefore, I recall "The Singing Woman," Katrine; her beauty, her fearlessness, her loyalty, her voice of gold--it seems as if only one lost to caution and heedless of consequence would undertake her history expecting it to be believed. But there is this advantage: the newspapers, recording much of her early life, are still extant, her Paris work discussed by Josef's pupils to this day, and her divine forgetfulness the night she was to sing at the Metropolitan a known thing to people of two continents; but unrecorded of her, till now, is that, for love, like brave, mad Antony, she threw a world away.
It is impossible to tell the tale of Katrine without narrating side by side the story of Dermott McDermott; and here trouble begins, for Ireland would never allow anything written concerning him that was not flattering, and the Irish people, especially in the regions of Kildare and Athlone, have combined to make a saint of him. A saint of Dermott McDermott! Heaven save the mark!
But of Frank Ravenel's life I can speak with truth and authority. I had the story from his own lips under the pines and the stars of North Carolina, fishing the Way-Home River, or sitting together on the Chestnut Ridge, where Katrine and he first met. This was before he became--before Katrine made him--the great man he is to-day.
* * * * *
And two things linger with me--the first a conversation between Dermott and Katrine at the Countess de Nemours'.
"Tell me," said Katrine: "do you think any woman ever married the man who was kindest to her?"
"It's unrecorded if it ever occurred," Dermott answered.
* * * * *
And a second, the truth of which is less open to dispute.
"Nora," Katrine asked, "could you ever have loved any but Dennis-your first love?"
"No," answered Nora. "To an Irishwoman the drame comes but the wance."
E.M.L.

KATRINE
I
UNDER THE SOUTHERN PINES
Ravenel Plantation occupies a singular rise of wooded land in North Carolina, between Way-Home River, Loon Mountain, and the Silver Fork. The road which leads from Charlotte toward the south branches by the Haunted Hollow, the right fork going to Carlisle and the left following the rushing waters of the Way-Home River to the very gate-posts of Ravenel Plantation, through which the noisy water runs.
Ravenel Mansion, which stands a good three miles from the north gate of the plantation, is approached by a